The present invention relates to flow-reducing devices, and particularly to such devices useful as regulated emitters for drip irrigation.
Drip irrigation is increasingly gaining wide-spread use as a means for supplying water, and also fertilizer and other soil additives, to field crops and orchards. In some of the known drip emitter devices, the emission of the water is effected by small openings, but these devices have the serious disadvantage that they easily clog. In other devices, a long circuitous pathway is provided for the water to reduce its pressure so that it eventually discharges in the form of a slow trickle. The known devices of this type, however, usually produce non-uniform outputs because of the pressure drop along the length of the line, the different elevations at which the emitters are located, and the fluctuations in the line pressure. This is highly undesirable, and a number of arrangements have been proposed to correct it, but the known arrangements are usually very costly and/or inefficient.
An object of the present invention is to provide a regulated flow-reducing device particularly useful for drip irrigation and having advantages in the above respects.